INDIANAPOLIS - WellPoint Inc. (NYSE: WLP), the nation's largest health-care benefits provider, unveiled on Monday a plan to help address the growing ranks of the uninsured. The WellPoint plan is a blend of public and private initiatives aimed at ensuring universal coverage for children and providing new options for the working uninsured.

More than 46 million Americans younger than 65 did not have health insurance in 2005. About 45 percent of these individuals are eligible for public programs and not enrolled or voluntarily choose not to purchase coverage, while the remaining 55 percent simply cannot afford private insurance.

To improve access to health care for children, WellPoint supports the expansion of state health care programs to cover more of the 9 million American children who went without coverage last year. Specifically, WellPoint urges states to expand their programs to cover children in families that earn up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level which means that for a family of four, they can earn up to $60,000.

The plan also calls for the expansion of state health care programs to include parents in families that earn up to 200 percent of FPL (a family of four could earn up to $40,000) and for childless adults who earn up to 100 percent of FPL ($9,800 for a single adult). If adopted by all states, the proposed expansion of public programs, coupled with a successful outreach campaign, could provide coverage to 25 million people who are uninsured. To help pay for the changes to these programs, WellPoint will support an increase in tobacco taxes.

Wal-Mart urged to improve pay, benefits

Community activists from Los Angeles and other big cities issued a joint call Monday on Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) to improve its wages and health-care benefits before moving into urban areas, decrying what they called "poverty-wage jobs."

The advocacy group Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy released a statement and a letter to Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott that it said was signed by more than 100 religious, political, civil rights and business leaders from 10 urban areas across the country.

The group also urged elected officials in cities where Wal-Mart wants to expand to press the world's largest retailer for "good jobs that provide quality health insurance and living wages, and that allow employees to work free from discrimination and intimidation."

Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, which is trying to expand into more urban areas after growing in rural and suburban markets, defended its record as an employer, as a company committed to diversity and as an economic contributor to the neighborhoods where it has stores.

Wal-Mart also rejected the charge of low pay, saying it offers good jobs with competitive pay and benefits. Its average, full-time wage is $10.11 per hour and health plans cost as little as $11 per month in some areas, the company said.